Dan Houser on His Favorite Works, Why Bully 2 Was Canceled, and the Creative Process

Yesterday at L.A. Comic Con, Dan Houser — former Vice President of Rockstar Games and lead writer on many titles in the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead series — gave his first-ever public talk, previously announced. Naturally, the main reason for his appearance was to promote the upcoming projects of his new studio. Still, most of the attention was focused on the past.

• He’s confident that GTA 6 will be an excellent game, though he wasn’t personally involved in its development. Houser believes he has already written enough installments of the franchise.
• His personal favorite and most important work is RDR 2 — because all the elements of a true video game came together perfectly, leaving a strong emotional impact on players. Next for him is GTA 4, where Rockstar began telling stories in a new way; then the middle section of GTA 5, when the three protagonists start working together; and finally, the ending of RDR 1.
• A sequel to Bully never happened simply because of bandwidth issues. With small leadership teams, you can’t realize every idea you want.
• At E3 in May 2001, the developers brought GTA 3, recognizing its huge potential, but the game went largely unnoticed at the show. It was originally scheduled for a September release, but had to be delayed after the 9/11 tragedy. Around the same time, Take-Two was struggling financially and even left the stock market. There wasn’t enough money to print copies of GTA III. When it finally launched in October, reviews from the press were mixed, but players loved it — and sales stayed strong well into the following year.
• When Houser joined development on GTA 3, the script was already written, though he made a few changes. Rockstar wanted to use motion capture after hearing competitors were doing so, but lacked the budget. They partnered with a tiny Long Island studio whose stage could only fit three people. There also weren’t enough resources to give the main character a voice.
• The idea for the talk-radio station came from the need to fill long city drives with content. Dan and Lazlow handled it themselves to keep costs down. Later, someone suggested adding in-game characters calling the station, which became a feature.
• Houser considers his “outsider” perspective — a Brit who lived in the U.S. for many years — an advantage when creating games steeped in American culture.
• The publisher never had direct influence over creative process.

Toward the end, Houser also mentioned his new comic American Caper. He said it’s probably not as dark as Trevor and that he wanted to write not about car thieves but about criminals who wouldn’t fit into GTA world.

The entire panel lasted less than 20 minutes — a bit short for an in-depth conversation with someone like Houser. Then again, this was a convention setting, where panels usually follow this format.

But here’s the good news: Houser will soon sit down for a long-form interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, who already announced it on Reddit. Even better, he invited fans to submit their own questions, which might be asked directly to Dan. So if there’s something you’ve always wanted to know from him, now’s your chance.

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